Interceptors

Under a contract from The Boeing Company, Northrop Grumman is the sole supplier of interceptor boosters for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, the first and only operationally deployed missile defense program to defend the homeland against long-range ballistic missile attacks. The GMD system is designed to intercept and destroy hostile ballistic missiles in their midcourse phase of flight before they reenter the Earth's atmosphere.

Northrop Grumman is responsible for the design, development and testing of the Orbital Boost Vehicle (OBV), a silo-launched, three-stage rocket derived from our proven Pegasus, Taurus and Minotaur space launch boosters. The OBV is designed to deliver advanced kinetic-energy interceptors to precise trajectories necessary to intercept the threat. The OBV has successfully conducted multiple test flights and has been deployed in silos in Alaska and California.

Because Northrop Grumman's OBV design is based on our highly successful lineage of space launch vehicles, it enjoys several advantages that make it an affordable, low-risk solution for ballistic missile defense:

30+ years of boost vehicle experience

Commercial motors with proven track records

Common avionics that have flown on more than 100 missions with 100 percent success